


Night Watch

by Thimblerig



Series: On the Decks of La Sirena [2]
Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Cristóbal Rios has prickles on his prickles, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e04 Absolute Candor, Gen, Passive-Aggressive Book-Reading, implied/referenced PTSD, there's not a lot of plot here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22731721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: The Ex-B has been put to bed in the medbay with the EMH hovering, gleefully considerate, over her concussion and grazes. The old man has laired up in his replica study with Fighting Nun Boy to talk, and Raffi disappeared into her quarters with a bottle of tequila a half hour ago.Which leaves Cris minding the ship, lounging at ease in the captain’s chair with his book and his aguardiente and the pretty, pretty lights in the windows.And it leaves Jurati, plunked down in the Ops seat...
Relationships: Dr Agnes Jurati & Cristóbal Rios
Series: On the Decks of La Sirena [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634554
Comments: 25
Kudos: 65





	Night Watch

The Ex-B has been put to bed in the medbay with the EMH hovering, gleefully considerate, over her concussion and grazes. The old man has laired up in his replica study with Fighting Nun Boy to talk, and Raffi disappeared into her quarters with a bottle of tequila a half hour ago.

Which leaves Cris minding the ship, lounging at ease in the captain’s chair with his book and his aguardiente and the pretty, pretty lights in the windows.

And it leaves Jurati, plunked down in the Ops seat.

She has a book of her own now, hardcover, with a luridly printed paper wrapper. It’s too neat, too clean - the pristine lines and edges of a replicated product, no ingrained dust or patination of an object long-loved. She sits there, all fly-away hair and vague blue eyes, and reads the thing without comment.

He didn’t ask her to be here.

Telling her to leave would be losing a point, somehow.

She turns a page.

This isn’t the _Ibn Majid,_ of course it isn’t. But Jurati’s still sitting exactly where Cris’s last Captain was, when... _that_ happened. He feels chill, sweat-slick metal under his palm again, smells the rich salt-and-iron of blood, he -

Takes another drink, instead.

Jurati turns a page.

“I’m not your father,” he announces to the void on the other side of the viewscreen.

“I am two years older than you,” she says to her book, “so that’s good to hear.”

Point to the little doctor.

A cup of tea appears on the bulkhead, in a flowery, gold-rimmed porcelain cup, its steam rich with the fragrance of bergamot. She didn’t ask for it and in any case has no replication privileges outside the Mess unit or her cabin, which means… the damn Holograms are damn suck-ups, is what it means. Jurati looks up when she smells the tea and her uncertain mouth brightens into a smile like sunshine. “Thank you,” she says to the empty air.

 _Tea-related emergency,_ is it? Suck-ups.

A soft foam ball materialises next to the cup, impudently orange, and the little doctor’s eyebrows raise. She puts a hand to her mouth, glances at Cris guiltily, then picks up the tea, instead.

He turns a page.

After half an hour, Cris asks, “What’s it about?” He glances at the lurid cover - a baby in a metal shell, a woman in another, fanciful sci-fi elements daubed all over.

 _”Cyteen?”_ Jurati’s small hand smooths over the cover and she frowns. “It’s about being able to make people in factories, to order, and how the practicalities of that might work out. It’s about a flawed, brilliant leader and the shadows of her decisions.” Her hand traces the cover again, and her vague blue eyes... remain vague, but in a thoughtful way. “It’s about whether factory-made people are useful objects or, or the grandparents of the coming world.” She shrugs diffidently. “Stuff.”

“Hn.” He can see why the Holograms like her.

The colours are still streaming in the viewscreen, gaudy and exuberant. It’s always night, out here, and always bright. He’s not used to having so many people around him, for so long. But the little doctor is quiet, at least.

His cockpit smells of bergamot.

“More tea?”

**Author's Note:**

> // An explanation for the foam rubber ball can be found in “Divided”, the first fic I wrote in this series. :-)
> 
> // The book Agnes Jurati is reading is _Cyteen,_ about the planet of the same name. Its first settlers started creating population in bulk by cloning _azi,_ genetically human workers, and teaching them with automated “tape”. Unlike Serpent’s Reach (same universe, different planet) which treated _azi_ like worker bees, a lot of thought went into bringing out their best potential and, simply, what values they should have to hand on to their children. No doubt it’s, er, a coincidence that a researcher in artificial life might find it interesting.
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyteen


End file.
